Customer Reviews

Earth Wind & Fire

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

EWF in it's prime. This CD and "The need for love" Cd are classic and a rare sound for EWF, before the addition of Philip Bailey, Larry Dunn, Ralph Johnso, etc. You would definitely have to be a true EWF follower or a funk collector in order to really appreciate this album.

I remember hearing this in '71 and being transfixed by a group that sounded so completely original. A "different" Earth, Wind & Fire than we came to know, but no less interesting. A muscular horn section with strong jazz sensibilities. Strong harmonies, funky, tight. They cover a wide range of styles. A great shame that it was out of print so long. I wore out my copy of this about 6 months after it came out. "Love is Life" is a joy with simple and idealistic lyrics(appropriate to the mindset of the time), it's strong harmonies. The first three pieces are exceptional.

Earth, Wind & Fire was one of those bands in the 70's that took awhile to "grow" on me. But once their music worked its way into my psyche-- WATCH out! Their debut album, long out-of-print (for shame, Warner Bros.!) shows that that they "had it" from the word GO! Put on "Help Somebody" and you'll see what I mean. With that horn section, they're in a class with Chicago and Blood Sweat & Tears-- but the rhythms & subjects are all their own. And "Bad Tune" makes for a GREAT instrumental finale-- it makes me think these guys could have been doing action-movie soundtracks in their spare time! The spoken bits between songs I could do without, but what the hey. I only just noticed that the song "Handwriting On The Wall" (which had been on an earlier reissue, the 2-LP "BEAT IT TO LIFE")is missing. Was that on the original LP, or not? It certainly belongs here.

This is a very good album, that unfortunately was released at a time when Black radio was loathe to play anything over 3 minutes long. As a result it passed largely unoticed. Love is Life, Fan the Fire, and This World Today are all very strong cuts that would have been big hits if released in say, 1975. Easily the best of their first 3 albums, and far superior to the weak follow-up.

It's a shame that many EW&F fans still don't know about this album & it's follow up from the same year (1971) the Need of Love. It was the 1st incarnation of EW&F, the white brothers (Maurice & Verdine) put together one of the tightest & funkiest bands i'd ever heard! It's raw power is something that was on par with another album of that time, Maggot Brain, by Funkadelic. Maurice White was beginning to put his vision together of what the baddest band alive should be & this album, in my opinion, was a fantastic start. I often wondered how the members of the original group who left after the 2nd album must have felt seeing the glorious ascension that EW&F enjoyed from about 74-81, one of the most influential periods ever in music history for any artist or group! One thing for sure, they definitely made their contribution to usher in the baddest band ever, Earth, Wind & Fire!

Help Somebody, Fan THe Fire,& C'Mon Children are just a few examples. I agree with the reviewer above. Too raw for their pop fans. Harmonizing to make you melt. I love this album ( I love their later albums but...)so much I had to recommend it. Go get it, already.

This has some of the best vocal harmonizing you'll hear from EWF as well as a lot of energy ( Check out "reach out your Hand..."), but without the histionics of their late 80's stuff. I don't think you'll be disappointed.

in response to the reviewer who said that the last track indicates that they could have been doing action movies in their spare time, check out 'Sweet Sweetback's BaaaadAssss Song' -- I think sold here under the Melvin Van Peebles Collection name, rather than E,W&F -- it's fantastic, raw, and sure to appeal to anyone into this early material, I think it was the first recording E,W&F put out. The theme song also appears on 'Blaxploitation Vol. 3'

For a band that were conseived not all that long before this based mostly Maurice White's astrological chart,there's certainly a unity to this particular lineup. True: Wade Flemons,Don Whitehead and Sherry Scott certainly provided a different flavor for the music than the Head to the Sky/That's the Way of the World era lineup did. And that very quality was something of a surprise to me at first. Of course it probably won't if you've already heard their Columbia debut Last Days & Time which,honeslty is the closest thing anything from their "classic" lineup that approched the sound of this album. All the same the fact that Maurice White was so close to realizing his concept pretty well at this early juncture. One crucial thing was missing: things hadn't quite jelled 100%.

Songs such as "Help Somebody" and the slower "Love Is Life" and "This World Today" have EWF's humanitarian message intact,albeit a bit more on the cosmic end of expression even for them. One crucial thing about them is that they come at their sound less through innovation then by the fasion of a musical graft. Basically it's the melodic,harmony rich vocal sound of groups like Friends Of Distinction matched with some Chicago/Motown styled pychedelic soul musical textures. Funk process is good enough a word to describe it,especially when you get to NON STOP funk such as "Moment Of Truth" and "C'Mon Children"-pretty rawly recorded in many ways but slick also on another level. "Fan The Fire" comes strongly between the albums twin/singular focus musical viewpoints."Bad Tune" ends off everything on the first of Maurice's Kalimba-based funk instrumentals he'd provide for them and that would become very significant to EWF's distinctiveness throughout the years.

You can hear their sound is sharp and ready for success even here. Interesting thing is though,this lineup of the band obviously didn't have the same luck as a live act as during their first appearance at Maverick's Flat,story has it they were received so poorly the owner had to turn the lights out on them. Honestly....even in this trial-and-error stage of the whole "united funk" era that the R&B world was 100% ready for a band that mixed the Tower Of Power-like psychedelic soul/funk process with Sun Ra/Arkestra style spiritually oriented humanitarianism. And honestly that's EXACTLY what EWF were offering up at this point. In several years from this a series of good breaks would result in their sound being polished up just enough to attain more mass popularity. But at this point the concept of reaching the people was more important than reaching people's wallets. And that being the case Maurice White was probably more successful with this,especially in retrospect than even he thought he was.

This is a great introduction to earth, wind and fire and it's obvious that they were a fantastic band from the beginning.

A very important thing to know is this version under this ASIN no. is REMASTERED. It's obvious the moment you hear it! Then I checked the inner sleeve and found remastering credits. At first I had read the back cover where it says that the music was originally inherent with distortions and hiss and they have tried improving on this, so I wasn't sure if this meant that they directly transfered to digital from it's original condition.

But I'm happy to say it is remastered and sounds like 'old school' as they, in the best possible way!